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| Syed Salahuddin gestures during an addresss to a gathering in Muzaffarabad |
Syed Salahuddin, chief of the United Jihad Council (UJC), an alliance of over a dozen groups fighting Indian occupation of Jammu and Kashmir, on Sunday asked Pakistan to send its troops across the Line of Control or provide military aid to the struggling Kashmiris until the UN dispatched peacekeeping forces to the occupied territory.
Speaking to a gathering in Muzaffarabad, in his first public talk in many months, he dilated at length on the situation in occupied Kashmir, particularly in the wake of India’s move of Aug 5, scrapping special status of the held territory, putting it on a lockdown, clamping ceaseless curfew and communications blockade.
“It is for the first time in history that a whole nation has been immobilised and held hostage [by India] through a round the clock curfew and communication shutdown. The savage Indian imperialism is hell bent upon shedding the blood of innocent Kashmiris who are not ready to budge on their just stand,” said Salahuddin, whose Hizbul Mujahideen is the largest constituent of UJC.
“[Indian Prime Minister] Narendra Modi has unilaterally scrapped the recognised disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir to annex the occupied territory in accordance with his election manifesto,” he said.
“Sadly, our rulers, politicians and diplomats failed to take timely steps to frustrate this nefarious move,” he lamented, warning that Modi was pursuing his manifesto hotfoot that also included occupation of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
Salahuddin pointed out that there had been around a dozen United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on Kashmir, but the issue was yet to be resolved.
This issue, he regretted, was never discussed in the UNSC after 1965 in what put a question mark on Pakistan’s diplomacy over all these years.
He said in view of the “most alarming” situation in occupied Kashmir, it was the “responsibility of the UN to instantly land its peacekeeping forces there to save the humanity.”
Salahuddin said Pakistan was the only worldly support for the oppressed Kashmiris after the Almighty Allah, and therefore the centre of their hopes.
“In these testing times when India is obsessive about quelling resistance movement in occupied Kashmir and has dumped more than 10,000 youngsters into torture cells, Kashmiri people are looking towards Pakistan for the much needed military aid.”
Addressing Prime Minister Imran Khan and Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, he said if the deployment of UN peacekeepers was not possible immediately, Pakistan should enter its troops in the India occupied territory, for being a key party to this dispute.
“Political and diplomatic efforts are appreciable but nothing except use of force and jihad will work to evict India from Kashmir,” he said, warning that the time was running out very quickly.
He said because of the untiring struggle and sacrifices of Kashmiri people Kashmir issue had been into the spotlight across the world.
Though the world was paying attention to Kashmir but India was a cruel, wicked and untrustworthy enemy that only understood the language of power, he said.
Reminding premier Khan and Gen Bajwa of an injunction from the Almighty, he said: “In fact, it is obligatory for the armed forces of Pakistan to enter occupied Kashmir to help the subjugated Kashmiris.”
“On our part, we assure that the moment Pakistani troops will step on the soil of occupied Kashmir, the whole Kashmiri nation will stand up [to fight] along side them.”
“But if that’s not possible either, the second option is that Pakistan should arm the Kashmiri youth to fight India, to fulfil its responsibilities,” he said.
Salahuddin also made a veiled reference to the crackdown that Pakistan had launched on militant groups after Pulwama attack.
“At this point, the harsh steps taken by Pakistan have restrained us and our aiders (in AJK) from launching armed resistance against India. This is not fair,” he said, warning that the restrictions were augmenting “misunderstandings and apprehensions” across the entire state.
In 2017, the United States had put Salahuddin, who originally hails from Badgam area of occupied Kashmir, on a list of global terrorists, a move that Islamabad had had described as unjustified.
Tariq Naqash
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